Think You Know John McCain?

Mass transit won’t be an option

Likely Republican nominee John McCain’s recent rollout of his plan to make the United States
energy-independent— the Lexington Project— included offshore drilling,
a $300 million reward for a next-gen car battery, and big handouts to
nuclear power and coal companies.

What
it did not include was any mention of mass transit as a gas-saving
option for Americans. Looking at McCain’s record on mass transit, that
omission doesn’t seem to be an oversight. And that doesn’t bode well
for local mass transit projects that must tap into federal funds—like
the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter rail line or the
Milwaukee County Transit System.

McCain
is a longtime critic of Amtrak—so much so that he has said that
shutting down Amtrak would be a “non-negotiable issue” if he were president.

Although
he dislikes Amtrak and would prefer a privatized train system, McCain
didn’t even bother to vote on the reauthorization of Amtrak last year,
or on a Republican-backed amendment to limit the federal funds
allocated to Amtrak.

Going
forward, a McCain administration would not bode well for public
transit projects, just when Americans are taking buses and trains in
record numbers to cut down on their gas consumption.

This
summer, McCain called for a gas tax holiday that would have had serious
consequences for the nation’s mass transit services. According to the
American Public Transportation Association, the gas tax break would
have “eliminate[d] $1.4 billion of federal funding for public
transportation and severely restrict[ed] the industry’s ability to add
and improve transit services for a growing number of Americans.”

Local Projects Would Take a Hit

Locally,
the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter rail line could
be completely quashed if an anti-transit president were elected.

Supported
by the residents of the three counties, as well as local business
leaders, KRM is on hold, thanks to disagreement among elected
officials regarding a local funding source.

But
the KRM also would need an estimated $127 million in federal funds to
get up and running. It would have to compete for $100 million of that
amount from a federal New Starts program, which solely funds new
transit projects.

Kerry Thomas, of the rail advocacy group
Transit NOW, said that competition becomes more difficult each year,
as more cities want to implement new public transit projects.

An
anti-transit McCain administration could make that process even more
difficult, or even slash the funds so that no or few new projects could
move for ward. Ongoing federal assistance for KRM, an estimated $2.3
million per year, would also be in jeopardy if an anti-rail
administration is elected in November.

Likewise, the Milwaukee County Transit System, which operates the county’s buses, could also be threat ened if the federal government
decides to fund public transit at less than optimal levels. The
troubled system receives 14% of its operating revenue from the federal government.

According
to the nonpartisan Public Policy Forum, that federal money is a
stop-gap measure used to make up for relatively flat revenues from the
state, county and riders. Less money from the feds would mean—you
guessed it—higher property taxes, higher fares or less service.

But
there is some hope on the horizon. The U.S. House of Representatives
just overwhelmingly passed the Saving Energy Through Public
Transportation Act of 2008, which authorizes an addi tional $1.7
billion for local transit issues. A whopping $21 million would come to Wisconsin, including $7.6 mil lion for Milwaukee, $723,536 for Racine and $594,902 for Kenosha.

Not surprisingly, two of Wisconsin’s
congressmen—Paul Ryan and F. Jim Sensenbrenner—voted against it, while
the rest of our state’s delegation supported it. The Senate will take
up this bill soon. Will Sen. McCain show up to vote?

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